Sandboarding in the Valley of Death

"Do you want to go sandboarding tomorrow?" asked one of the German guests at the hostel yesterday. "OK," said I, "where do we go?" "We just have to cycle through the Valley of Death to the dunes."

Wait. The Valley of What?!

La Valle de la Muerte is only a few kilometres out of San Pedro and could either be so named owing to the lack of flora and fauna there, or because of the ease with which one could get lost and perish in the arid environment.

The name of our destination doesn't seem at all ironic to the German guy, who is ten years younger than me and has snowboarding experience under his belt. As part of a group of three, he has recently been on an 80km round trip cycle ride into the Atacama desert. The idea of setting out on such a journey on a rented bicycle in dubious condition with no mobile phone reception rings alarm bells in my mind. Not so in his; he is the intrepid traveller, against which I often measure myself and find myself wanting. However, having missed the opportunity to sandboard in New Zealand, I was eager to give it a try. So, I agreed to go with him. K, wisely, stayed at home.

We hired bikes and sandboards from a shop in town, where he had previously rented those that withstood the epic desert journey, so I have some faith in their road worthiness. After having hired bikes in shocking condition before, these were surprisingly well maintained and even came with two new inner tubes and a pump. A couple of stray dogs, of the many in Chile, wandered into the shop and took an interest in what we were doing.

The equipment

The dunes are an easy five- or six-kilometre cycle ride from town. That said, nothing is all that easy at 2,400m elevation, especially physical exertion. With the boards strapped to our backs, we navigated the bumpy, dusty route through the red rocks of the valley and arrived at the foot of a 150m slope of sand. One of the dogs from the shop ran behind us the entire way, leading the way through the valley like our spirit guide.

A long way down

As we arrived, a group of people who had paid for an instructor and transport were learning on the slope. We made our way up to the ridge and looked down at the jeep that brought the others. Having strapped ourselves to the boards, the German leapt experimentally off and slid down. Tumbling off only at the end of the ride, his prowess at riding on snow clearly stood him in good stead. His complaint was that the ride was too slow on sand, owing to the higher friction. Attempting to get more speed led him to make an impressive head-over-heels descent of the slope.

Not so steep from down here

My first attempt was not without falling over - mostly overbalancing backwards as I reached any kind of velocity down the hill. The result was pockets, shoes, socks, ears, and nose full of sand. We were both dressed in jackets, hat, and trousers, despite (or because of) the desert sun. A pair of Frenchmen appeared, wearing little more than a pair of shorts and no top.

A Frenchman

Also being keen snowboarders, they demonstrated a reasonable level of competence on their first attempts. The faithful dog, having climbed to the top of the dune, chased one of them down, following the cloud of dust. In all, we managed nine trips up and down the slope, which felt like very few to gain competence in the sport. More, however, we could not have managed as the Sun rose and demonstrated why this area is desertified.

Shortly after returning home, the German contingent left for onward travel. This led to a much quieter environment come the evening. I was keen to cook an unusually naturally vegetarian (actually vegan) Chilean dish called porotos granados.

Porotos means beans and this dish is typically made in summer from fresh white tortola beans (similar to cannelini), fresh corn, zapallo - a giant pumpkin with a pale green skin and orange flesh - and basil (albahaca). The resulting stew seems rather a heavy dish for summer but was perfect for the chilly evening.